


Sleeping Beauty

by Leocante



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempt at Humor, Case Fic, Dean Winchester is Bad at Feelings, First Kiss, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Protective Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester is So Done, Sleeping Beauty Elements, Sleeping Castiel (Supernatural), Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:41:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28388709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leocante/pseuds/Leocante
Summary: "Dean.""What, Sammy?" he asked, because what was so important in this moment? Cas got hit by a curse. A curse meant for him. Now he laid motionless on the ground, his eyes peacefully closed."I think," Sam took a deep breath, considering his words like the wrong ones could kill him, "I think he's sleeping.""What?"(Sleeping Beauty AU where Cas gets cursed during a witch hunt and Dean gets to play the prince.)
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 18
Kudos: 210





	Sleeping Beauty

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is inspired by the Sleeping Beauty, but is totally in the spn universe - just not in specific season. (Dates are for season 11, but I have Garh and Rowena here at the same time? It's honestly a mess on the timeline) Just enjoy the Case and the Feelings!
> 
> TW: Graphic description of wound-tending and at on point they discuss rapey motives in original Sleeping Beauty, it's like two sentences but it's here.

"Dean." 

Cas was dead because of him. 

"Dean."

Again.

_"Dean."_

"What, Sammy?" he asked, because what was so important in this moment? Cas got hit by a curse. A curse meant for him. Now he laid motionless on the ground, his eyes peacefully closed.

"I think," Sam took a deep breath, considering his words like the wrong ones could kill him, "I think he's sleeping." 

"What?" 

Now that Sam mentioned it, Dean could see it too. The gentle rise and fall of Cas's chest, almost invisible under the three layers of clothing and agonisingly slow, four or five times slower than normal frequency. 

But breathing. He was breathing. 

Dean stood up, only now realizing he was kneeling on the floor, right in the pool of blood of the witch that almost killed Cas. If she wasn't dead already, he would've killed her. 

He kicked her lifeless body for a good measure, Sam rolling his eyes, because he had a reputation to uphold – but Dean knew he wanted to kick the damn bitch as much as he did. 

It was Cas they were talking about. 

"Let's carry him to the car," said Sam, always the voice of reason.

They dragged Cas's unconscious form out of the cabin, leaving a bloody trace on the ground behind them. 

"His wounds aren't closing," said Sam, and Dean knew that, he didn't need it spelled out. Cas was an angel of the Lord, he healed with just a thought, but the small cut on his face that was supposed to close an eternity ago still shined with bright red. His torso probably looked a hell lot worse.

Red, the colour of mortal blood, somehow seemed unfitting for an angel. What world was it, when the blood of an angel and that of a mortal man had the same colour? 

Red, provided by Jimmy Novak. May he rest in peace and all that.

"Keys?" asked Sam. 

"Left pocket."

Dean refused to let go of Cas, holding onto him like it could save them both, drawing him closer into his chest, morbid bridal style, so Sam could reach into his pocket and open the car. 

It didn't even occur him to lay him on the ground. 

They managed to bang Cas's head against the roof of the Impala, both sighing as that was typical Winchester thing to do, adding bruises to already wounded flesh. Cas didn't react to the harsh treatment, his breathing uninterrupted. 

He looked too much like a corpse, laying on his back, arms positioned on his chest to minimize the danger of him falling on the ground. Dean knew he was going to break more than a few speed limits on his way back to the bunker. 

Three hours ride. Three hours too long. 

"Where is all that blood coming from?" 

There were cuts visible on his chest where the shirt was torn, but not deep enough or long enough to cause that much blood.

"Shit," said Dean with feeling. "I think he landed on the pitchfork." 

"You think?" 

"Look, I thought he managed to heal himself! It's kinda what he does!" 

Sam shot him his trademark bitchface, and it really wasn't the time. 

"Get in the car. We're going." 

There was nothing for Sam to do, other than get into the car. 

"Will he last?" he asked. "I mean, it's three hours ride back."

"He will," answered Dean, his stare focused on something too far before them. There was not an option for Cas not to survive the fucking ride. He went through too much to die from a blood loss. "Shut your cakehole and try to figure out what curse it was." 

The engine started, purring like a cat, and Dean mentally apologised to Baby for what he was going to do to her. If saving Cas meant bringing her to her limits, he would do it gladly and without hesitation. 

Fixing cars was too damn easier than fixing broken angels. 

"Hey, Garth, I was wondering..." 

Sam's voice was the only thing filling the silence, but Dean couldn't bring himself to listen. He was sure Sam was going to tell him about anything important if he found out. 

His only job was to get them all safely home, as quickly as possible. 

He couldn't see Cas in the rear-view mirror. Maybe it was a good thing, because seeing him there, without any life could've been all too distracting. 

"Rowena, listen..." 

It almost felt like a normal ride. He was at the steering wheel, like so many times before, Sam right next to him. It was so long just them two and their Impala against the world. 

But it was not just them for some time now. The two of them in the front seats, that much went unchanged, but Cas, Castiel, an angel of the Lord, sitting in the backseat, that was mostly new. 

There was something so absurd about having an Angel with a capital A downgraded to the backseat. They really went and befriended, if it could be called like that, a messenger of the God. 

"Shut up, Crowley..." 

And now they had the same messenger of God on the backseat, bleeding and unconscious. It looked like being friends with the Winchesters really had its perks – payed in blood and suffering. 

The worst thing was, that they didn't even need Cas for this particular hunt. They were more than capable of handling it on their own, but Dean couldn't hold back the selfish desire to bring Cas with them. He talked him into it. 

"Dude, it wasn't your fault."

Dean didn't even notice when Sam stopped calling on every number that could be useful for witchcraft, but now he was piercing him with razor sharp focus. 

"I convinced him to come," he managed to say, because it was the truth. 

"He wouldn't have come if he didn't want to, Dean," Sam ran his hand through his hair in a nervous manner. "He is an angel; he doesn't just mindlessly obey humans."

But wasn't the entire purpose of angels to obey? The God, the archangels, whoever decided to be their boss? There was even a time when the heaven followed Cas. 

He decided to change the subject. 

"You found anything?" 

Sam let out a huffy laugh, humourless in its nature, but dropped the subject. 

"Too much." 

"Too much? What do you mean 'too much'?" 

There was a spark in the centre of Dean's chest, refusing to calm itself down. He wouldn't have taken no for an answer, but if there were sources, they could work much quicker. 

"As in Rowena could recite twelve curses with the same effect on top of her head," said Sam. 

It sounded like a good thing. But Sam's expression was too dim for it to be a good thing.

"So, we just make antidotes for every one of these or where's the catch?" 

"That's the thing Dean, the wrong antidote can kill the victim." 

Of course. It can never be easy. 

"How do we find out which of the curses it was?" 

"According to Garth, there are literal books focused on them. He said that the witches took great pride in those, seeing as it was hard to distinguish between them." 

A straight road opened before them, and Dean put the pedal to the metal. The sooner they could get to the bunker, the better.

Sam continued with his string of almost-useless info. 

"Sometimes the victims die of dehydration, sometimes the breathing isn't slowed down, sometimes they die because their veins clog with blood. But that's about it when it comes to differences." 

Dean considered it. Cas was an angel, which meant he couldn't probably die from dehydration, hunger or heart attack, which was good. But it wasn't going to help them with finding the right antidote. 

If it was Dean, the one stricken with the curse, Cas would've just touched him, two fingers to his forehead, and cure him. There was something weirdly intimate in letting your wounds be healed by the power of God. 

But it was Cas who got in the way, not Dean, and he couldn't heal by touch. If he could, he wouldn't have stopped. It was magic, but a good kind of magic. 

"Is there any time limit?" 

"Not as far as I know. Rowena said she once put to sleep a man for hundreds of years. Some of the curses die with the witch that caused them. Some of them lift on their own accord a week or so later, but I wouldn't count on that."

Yeah, they weren't ever lucky like that.

"And Crowley?" he asked, not letting the silence stretch for too long. 

"He was very helpful," Sam said, sarcasm leaking into his words like poison. "Supposedly it's impossible to find the right spell without the witch that caused it."

"Impossible my ass." 

"I've told him as much."

They settled into silence; the plan clear to both of them. Dean didn't put on any kind of music, not wanting to miss it if Cas suddenly snapped out of his slumber – however unlikely it might've been. Sam looked content just with staring out of the window.

* * *

Baby started to make weird squeaky noises about a half-way through, but they managed to make it to bunker unharmed and in one piece. 

And thirty minutes earlier than anticipated, which was still not enough.

Cas laid on the backseats, uninterrupted by the harsh way Dean parked, only his right hand fell from his chest. There was something about it loosely hanging from the seat that made the sight unbearable. 

The white shirt Cas always wore was drenched in dry blood, turning it into nauseous brownish-red colour. They managed to carry him inside without any issue, laying him on the table with map. 

There was something wrong with leaving him on the floor, and Sam didn't object. 

Dean got into the work. The sleep was not something they could cure right away, but the holes in Cas's body were. The first aid kit in bunker was fully equipped. 

The blue tie went off first, and who knew why Cas was still wearing it around his neck. It was easily the worst part of the FBI suits. But it held kind of an appeal – maybe, just maybe Dean could've used the tie to pull Cas to him, closer, and no. 

He was patching his friend up, there was no time for distractions. 

The obnoxious trench coat they were all too fond of wasn't getting in the way, so Dean went to unbutton the shirt. 

Angles had a thing for formal clothes. All angels, except for Metatron and the God himself, but apart from that, all angels were keen on them. Maybe they chose their vessels based on the importance of the person, maybe the better the people were dressed, the easier it was to corrupt them into saying yes. 

The buttons were stuck, dried blood making them impossible to undo, so Dean tugged until the shirt ripped, buttons flying through air. It was ruined anyway. 

Sam brought boiling water. 

Cas's torso was full of shallow cuts, broken glass still sticking out of them. 

"We have to take it out before we try to turn him," said Sam after cataloguing the wounds with clinical approach. 

"No shit, Sherlock."

Dean didn't mean to snap out on him, but hey, accidents happen. Sam didn't comment.

"Hand me the tweezers," he said instead, and it was probably better if he was the one doing all that surgery stuff. Dean might've watch Dr. Sexy, but Sam was usually doing most of the sewing and cleaning. 

Dean's hands were the hands of the killer first and foremost, and there wasn't any doctor he would've trusted more with Cas than Sammy. 

The last piece of glass tinkled when it hit the bottom of the bowl soon after that. Most of the cuts didn't need sewing, but the area was already warmer than the surrounding flesh. The infection might've already taken root.

If Cas woke up, it wouldn't have been a problem, just a magic thought and the work was done. But like this, it was on them to keep his vessel alive and well. 

It was Deans job, specifically. He convinced him, he was going to play the nurse, if he had to.

"Let's turn him?"

"Yeah."

"On three."

The table wasn't the best of places for stunts like that.

"One." 

It wasn't narrow by any means, but they still pulled Cas closer to them, preparing to turn the body. Possibly without adding more damage.

"Two."

They stood beside Cas's body, Dean arranging the hands, so they wouldn't get broken on top of all that because of incautious manhandling, Sam finding a leverage at Cas's legs. 

"Three."

They pushed at the same time, turning Cas face down more carefully than ever. Which was stupid, because he was an angel, not a fragile human like them. 

Dean rearranged Cas's head, letting him rest comfortably on the side, his eyes closed, and lips opened just a little bit. He looked peaceful, more angelic than in a long time. 

It was ironic. Angel looking more angelic while sleeping, which they didn't do at all.

He realized he was brushing his thumb along Cas's cheekbone, not knowing where the gentleness came from, and hurriedly made himself stop. 

Sam was smirking for some reason. 

"Ehm, pitchfork?" asked Dean intelligently. 

"Four holes," said Sam, swallowing whatever he wanted to say before that. 

It sounded like a conversation between two mentally ill people. Which they were only partly. Dean tried again.

"We should take off the coat."

"Yeah."

It turned out that unwrapping Cas out of his trench coat was a lot harder than it looked like. 

"I swear he became one with this," exclaimed Dean, unsuccessfully tugging at the back. 

"That's partly true, because it's the dried blood that sticks it to him."

"Thanks for the info, Samantha."

Sam rolled his eyes. 

"We should just cut it off."

Destroying the trench coat was tempting. Too tempting, but it was a part of Cas, his own symbol of resistance. How many people, including the King of hell, the God and his supervisors have told him to lose the coat? 

It didn't seem right for them just to destroy it. Even if it was hundred shades away from beige and turned into something resembling a solid rock more than a piece of textile.

"No," he said, not looking at Sam's expression. He knew what it looked like, but okay, the coat had a sentimental value for him as well. 

Sam didn't try to fight him, for which Dean was thankful for. They didn't need to fight between themselves, when their angel was possibly dying at their table. 

The coat finally unstick with a nasty sound a few minutes later. 

"Tell me we aren't saving the shirt as well," Sam said, already holding a knife to the collar.

"Bitch." Was all that Dean could possibly say to that. 

"Jerk."

And that was the only answer, together with the sound of tearing fabric, he knew he would get. They didn't even need to soak the scabs with warm water – they already ripped them raw from Cas's wounds while dismantling the coat. 

There was new blood pouring from the holes. They were uncomfortably deep to look, at least two inches, with rigged edges. Cas probably pulled the pitchfork out of himself, and they didn't even notice what went down. 

It begged the question how hurt Cas normally got on hunts. They never got to see it, as he kept healing himself as quickly as he was getting injured. 

How many punches did he take for them? 

Sam started to clean up the blackened blood with a piece of cotton wool. The wounds looked less and less pretty with more and more cleaned skin. 

"This one goes right through the spine," Sam wondered out loud, dragging the wet cotton across the puncture. "Did he stand after getting impaled or no?" 

"I don't know," said Dean. But if anyone was able to know, it was him. Sam spent half of the fight pressed face-first into a wall. 

Did Cas run to step in front of him? No. No he didn't. 

"I was lying on the ground," he tried to remember how the things went to shit. "The witch was holding you with her left hand and started to draw some symbols with her right hand in my direction." 

"Where was Cas?" 

"On the ground a few steps behind me. I barrelled it into the centre column, he got thrown against the further wall. I don't think he moved from the place."

Sam threw the bloodied cotton wool into a bowl reserved for trash. 

"How did he stop the curse if he was behind you?" 

And that, that was a good question. 

"Wings?"

They were both so accustomed to Cas using his wings only when it came to longer distances that the few feet sounded almost ridiculous. But there was no better explanation. 

"If he used his wings to get to you," Sam immediately agreed with the theory, "how much time would he have?"

Dean closed his eyes, picturing the scene in his head. 

"Enough to pull a pitchfork out from his back."

"Yeah." 

"Shit." 

They both looked at the holes in Cas's back with new understanding. They didn't know how the sleeping curse affected angels. Chances were Cas was the first angel ever hit with this type of curse.

How would the vessel, long dead Jimmy Novak, react to its soul put to sleep? 

If Cas woke up without enough Grace to heal himself? 

But those were all questions for another time. Now they needed to stop the infection from spreading. They needed to find the antidote and bring Cas back.

"Dean?" Sam froze on the spot, holding something in between his tweezers. "I think I've found something." 

He dipped whatever it was he held in the slowly cooling water, revealing a green colour under the layer of blood. 

"What is that?" 

"I don't know. It looks like stem?" 

"A stem." Sure, now was Cas growing grass over his body. 

"Yeah. I'll try to do some research on it. Maybe the infection caused this?"

"Or maybe it was just on the pitchfork, which would explain how it got into our colander here."

They both knew Sam was going to investigate it more closely. 

"You done?" asked Dean impatiently. 

"Help me with the bandages and I'll be." 

They wrapped Cas like a mummy, getting pressure onto the extra holes in his body. The wounds were still bleeding but now they were also cleaned up – there was nothing more to do. 

"Let's get this Sleeping Beauty into infirmary," Dean announced, already on his way to open the doors. They never really used the place but now it seemed like time good as any to start. They weren't leaving Cas on the central table like some sort of barbarians. 

It couldn't be even comfortable to lie there. More so, he wouldn't be able to look at Cas's lifeless form every time he decided to grab a beer or something. 

Sam washed his hands and they carried Cas into the infirmary, leaving the interactive map under him bloodied and dirty.

* * *

"You should wash," said Sam, it looked like he got into his mothering setting. 

"No, we should find the antidote, Sammy."

Maybe they weren't in a time press, but they still were in a time press. Cas had a hole right through his spine, and who knew how the curse was affecting his Grace.

"Have you seen yourself lately?" Sam vaguely pointed to his face, and no, Dean didn't have time to check himself up in the fucking mirror. They had more important things to do. 

"Are we competing for Miss Bunker 2015 or what?" 

"No, Dean, you're just all drenched in blood!" 

And okay, that might've explained the uncomfortable itching on Dean's face.

"We aren't doing anything for Cas if we don't eat and shower first," Sam continued, and wasn't it normally Dean who did this kind of stuff? 

It looked like the tables were turned. Dean wasn't hungry, which didn't make any sense after eight hours away from bunker, but fainting wouldn't do them any good. That much was true. Besides, Sam clutched his right wrist like he was getting cramps into it, maybe hot shower would help them both. 

"Sure," Dean reluctantly said, turning on his heel. He could at least remember in shower where in the library he saw the books about witchcraft.

* * *

"You've got anything?" asked Dean into heavy silence that surrounded them for at least four hours now. It could've been something around three in the morning, maybe more, and they still had batshit. 

Garth was right, it wasn't difficult to find a sleeping curse, it was fucking impossible to find the sleeping curse. 

Dean went through his second book devoted to sleep, Sam was on his third, the Men of Letters library seemed to be fully supplied when it came to curses and sleep. 

"There is this part about infection that spreads with daisies, apparently," said Sam, scratching the back of his neck. "I don't think that the stem was from a daisy." 

"I don't think the stem is important at all," Dean couldn't resist saying. 

"And what do you have?" 

Dean shrugged noncommittally, looking at his pile of books. There was nothing helpful or interesting about it, and the adrenaline which pushed him to this point disappeared without a trace. 

"I have an utter desire to go to bed," he said out loud, standing up from his chair with a yawn. "All this reading about sleep makes me kinda sleepy." 

The tired look Sam sent him answered all questions that could've been asked. They were both exhausted from the hunt, up for more than thirty-six hours and in desperate need of some regenerating. 

Dean could feel his knee protest when he took the first steps towards his room, and he heard Sam hiss in pain behind his back. Most of the bruises were on Cas, but they didn't get out of the fight as easily as they should have. Having an angel with healing powers at your side had some perks – the pain was just temporary. 

They became less cautious about their own wounds; about the situations they could've persist. The morning was going to be a bitch. 

"Yeah, sure, night," Sam muttered, making a beeline for his own room. He deserved the break. It wasn't even his mistake. 

"Night."

The lights went off when Dean pulled the lever, the bunker suddenly becoming a comfortable dark place. Nights were peaceful here, the only monsters hunting him were his own. 

They left the doors to infirmary partly open, and that gap tempted Dean more than it probably should. There, behind those doors, lied his angel. Deeply asleep. 

Dean didn't know if Cas dreamed, if angels even were capable of dreaming, but he hoped he wasn't trapped inside some nightmare. Of all the angels, Cas did horrible things, there was more than enough material for generous nightmare collection – but he hoped Cas dreamed about the world. 

He made his way to the doors, looking at Cas's sleeping face illuminated by the light of the backup generator, his black hair in contrast to the white bedsheet. 

"Cas," he said into the silence, hoping it would reach the angel. "I'm sorry." 

There was nothing more to say, but he talked, nevertheless, and it came out like a prayer. He didn't pray to Cas in a long time now. 

"We will bring you back, I promise," he vowed and meant every word. He would kill and torture, he would riot just to get his angel back, and it was a strange thought. 

Doing this for Sam, bringing the world to the edge if he needed to, was natural. Sammy was his little brother, he had to protect him for all cost. But Cas wasn't a family by design, by blood. Yet he would do the same for him and more. 

"Just hold on, okay? Just stay alive." 

Cas was special. 

"We'll figure it out." 

He stood there, unmoving, thinking about their past, the part of his life he spent with Castiel. They knew each other for five years – a fleeting thought for Cas, who was older than whole humanity – but a significant amount of time for him. 

An angel and a human. They shared a profound bond, as Cas once put it, and Dean could feel it too. From the moment he was taken out of hell, even when the handprint vanished from his shoulder, the feeling was everlasting, a part of him. 

When Dean finally stepped out from the doors and went to his room, the bunker seemed darker than before. He didn't notice the sharp green leaves growing around Cas's body.

* * *

"Dean!"

"Dean, wake up!"

Dean snapped into consciousness like he got under the spell of a djinn, immediately pointing a gun at the door. 

And at Sam, who stood with his hands raised in 'I surrender' motion, looking like shit. Dean supposed he didn't look any better. How early was it? Eight in the morning? Jesus. 

"Whoa!" exclaimed Sam, few seconds late than was appropriate for a reaction. 

"What?" asked Dean, hiding the gun back under his pillow with a gruff expression. 

"You were right!" 

"Of course I was," Dean rubbed his eyes before his brain caught up with his mouth. "What are we talking about?" 

Sam looked way too excited for those dark circles he carried under his eyes. 

"You called Cas a 'Sleeping Beauty' yesterday."

Wait, what? Maybe Sam was delirious. Wouldn't be the first time. 

His disbelief must've shown on his face, because Sam shot him the bitchface and didn't elaborate at all. 

"Get up, I'll show you." 

Dean obediently got up from his bed, missing the warmth as soon as he did. He needed a coffee. 

Sam led him right to the library, wait, scratch that, to the infirmary. He struggled to get the doors to open, which was weird – they didn't need any maintenance in the evening. Or rather, in the early morning. Sure, he was tired, but he didn't break the doors on his way out.

Right? 

The doors finally gave in, opening to show the room in its whole beauty. 

Plants. Everywhere. There were fucking plants invading the infirmary, so dense that Dean couldn't even see Cas, who laid about ten feet away. 

"Yeah," said Sam. "Imagine my surprise."

The flowers were in bloom already, petite white blossoms covering the entire mass. 

"Roses?" 

"Basically. It's a wild rose bush according to Google."

Dean extended his arm, touching the blossom. 

"How do we get rid of it?" 

"You don't know how the story went?" asked Sam, bewildered. "It's like, the most basic fairy-tale." 

One of the thorns found its way to Dean's fingertip, drawing blood. 

"Auch! Of course I know the story. I just might have the actual thing a little confused with-"

"If you say porn, I'm going to kick you." 

"Okay, I won't say it."

Sam took a deep breath, exasperated. Dean grinned. 

"The prince woke the princess with a super-hot striptease?"

"A kiss, Dean, a kiss!" 

"Sure." Dean snickered next to the rosebush, ten feet away from Cas. He snickered, because they knew the antidote now, because they had a way out. He wasn't making empty promises to Cas. 

"I'm going for my machete," he said, already on his way for the weapon. That's what the prince did, wasn't it? Cutting the roses, getting closer to the sleeping princess in the tower. 

At least they didn't have to climb a fucking tower. 

Sam looked like he wanted to say something but dismissed the though half-way through.

* * *

"I was thinking," said Sam, covered in small cuts from the annoying omnipresent thorns, "why did Cas fall into enchanted sleep when he didn't touch anything pointy?"

They were halfway through the room – the rosebush showed as a mightier enemy one would have awaited. It grew impressively quickly for something that was basically a weed. 

"The pitchfork isn't pointy enough for you?" asked Dean, wiping the sweat out of his eyes with a shirt that had more holes than fabric now. 

"Yeah, but that was before he got hit with the curse." 

There wasn't any arguing with that logic. 

"You said he landed on you and the curse shattered against him?" 

"I didn't say anything about that." 

Sam stopped right in his tracks, with the knife stuck in the woody stem of the rosebush. 

"Dean, who killed the witch?" 

What a stupid question. 

"Did you land on your head? The witch was killed by-, ehm?" 

Dean stopped trying to pull out the roots from the floor. He couldn't say who killed the witch. He didn't know who killed her. Not him, probably. 

"Son of a bitch!" 

"I take it that it wasn't you?" asked Sam, and Dean could almost hear the wheels turning in his head. "It wasn't me either." 

"Cas," they said in unison. It was the only possible explanation. And it was pretty much unlikely. 

The rosebush blossomed under their hands, its white petals bigger the closer they got to their goal.

"Confusion curse?" tried Dean, picking up the work where he left off. The chatter wasn't going to help Cas.

"Possibly. I hate those Medieval European bitches," said Sam, following the example. "It would explain why the curse was lifted when she died."

But it didn't explain most of the other things. Cas couldn't have killed her if he was sleeping, or before he cured the holes in his back. It just didn't make any sense, the witch couldn't be at two places at the same time.

They worked in silence the rest of the rosebush, Dean powered by anger, Sam mostly out of a sense of duty. 

Cas was lying on the bed exactly as they let him, surrounded by the thorns, but not hurt by them. It was a bed made of roses, and he fit right in the middle of pure white blossoms with pointy teeth. He looked peaceful. 

The picture possibly took Dean's breath away, Cas's hair looking soft and silky, tangled in the hems and leaves, leaving him with a halo made of thorns – a thorn crown. 

His lips were pink. 

"Kiss him," said Sam, without any tact. 

"What?" Dean shrieked, caught of guard. But he would deny that if anyone asked. "Why me? Kiss him yourself, man!"

Sam let out a disappointed sigh. 

"Do you really want to watch me kiss him?" 

"Like, why would I care? It's Cas, Sam!" 

Actually, he absolutely didn't want to see his little brother kissing Cas for some reason. 

"Okay," Sam surprised him by saying, "move."

He moved out of reflex, dumbfounded. Jealousy swelled inside his chest like a storm, and there weren't any ration thoughts in his head, only his own heart screaming at him. 

Sam leaned over Cas. 

Dean had to physically restrain himself for reaching out, curling his hand into a fist. 

Sam's fingers cupped Cas's face, and Dean felt like a drowning man, like his only purpose served for this moment. He was supposed to be the one saving Cas, not Sammy. If there was anything he knew with certainty, it was this. 

He reacted before he knew it, pushing Sam to the side, forcefully. 

"Thank the fucking God," Sam laughed, laughed of all things, with mischievous sparks in his eyes. "I was really afraid for a moment that you'll let me do it."

Dean glared at him with the best murderous glare he got in the arsenal. 

He sat down on the bed beside Cas's body and leaned in to kiss Cas, to really kiss Cas for the first time.

And promptly stopped. 

"Isn't this like non-consensual? I mean, he's unconscious." 

"The kiss is supposed to wake him up, you aren't getting consent before that," Sam had the nerve to openly laugh at him.

Dean looked at Cas's lips, soft and full and pink. How would they feel against his?

"But you're right, the old fairy-tales are little bit rapey. In the original of The Sleeping Beauty, the prince impregnates the princess while she sleeps." 

"Really thanks for that info," Dean mutters, his attention completely elsewhere. 

"I think it was German. Or French." 

It was a shame he couldn't stab his brother to death. After all those years trying to keep him alive it was kinda counterproductive. But tempting. So tempting. 

"Sam." 

"Yeah?" 

"Shut the fuck up." 

He brushed Cas's face with his thumb, gently, by contrast to his harsh words. He leaned in, their lips almost touching. 

He hesitated. 

"You can say 'No homo' if it makes you feel any better."

Sam was enjoying this far too much. 

"You know what, actually?" asked Dean, never lifting his eyes form Cas's face. "All the homo."

He couldn't see Sam's reaction, and frankly, he didn't care at this point of the day. Cas was right here, gorgeous as always, and if the only thing that could break the curse was a kiss? Who was Dean to resist. 

Closing his eyes, maybe because that's what people do, maybe for enjoying the full experience – that would probably be his last – he leaned in and pressed his lips, gently, always so gently, to Cas's. They were even more soft than they looked like. 

It was probably a blasphemy to kiss an Angel of the Lord. But Dean had already been to hell, and he would've gone again if it was for the crime of kissing his angel. 

His Castiel. 

Dean opened his eyes at the touch of warm hand on his cheek. A touch of a hand that killed and healed, traitor's hand, warrior's hand. Lover's hand. 

Cas's eyes bore into his, with the intensity of holy fire, and it worked, the curse was broken. Broken, just as Dean was. 

The kiss was just a peck on the lips, but the roses died right away, dismantling into dust, only the halo made of thorns remained intact. 

"You're hurt," muttered Cas, their lips a breath apart, his eyes a perfect trap. And of course, the first thing he cared about was Dean, the selfless bastard never noticing that this was about his health in the beginning. 

Dean's migraine reduced to zero, the pain in his bad knee vanished, the small cuts did the same.

"Your spine was damaged, Cas," he heard himself say, as if it could make any difference. The cut on Cas's face disappeared without a trace, the rest of the wounds and bruises probably followed. "You dumb son of a bitch."

He brought their foreheads together, keeping them close. Cas was alive, that was all that mattered. 

Sam stood awkwardly in the middle of the room.

"Jimmy Novak died six years ago," said Cas, his voice a low rumble. "I was not in any danger." 

"You weren't healing. There was infection."

Cas lifted his other hand and cupped Deans face with ineffable affection, expressed by touch alone. 

"My Grace was put to sleep. Now I get why angels aren't supposed to do that." 

"Did it hurt?" 

"No. It was just..." Cas closed his eyes, like he tried to remember something that wasn't here before, "confusing."

Dean wanted to kiss the strange expression from his face, but he would never be that lucky. He got a taste of the divine, the mundane world was ruined for him now. He got a taste, and that was more than he could've ever hope for. 

"Did you kill the other witch?" Cas asked. 

"Other witch? Shit, that explains so much!" exclaimed Sam, and Dean startled. He managed to forget that Sam was in the room with them. Cas looked disconcerted, like he always did. 

He made a move to get up, not being used to lying on his back, not in his angel form. Their moment was supposed to be broken with the change, but the air remained charged with electricity. Cas sat straight next to Dean, on the edge of the bed. Their shoulders were touching. 

Dean still missed the proximity.

"Obviously!" Sam continued with a grin. He looked like a maniac, dark circles under his eyes, his clothes ripped apart to shreds. "One of the witches enchanted us with the confusion spell, that was the same one that kept me on the wall."

"The other one fought against-" he stopped himself in the middle of sentence, just staring for a moment. 

"You know what," he continued on completely different note. "I, I'm just going to go. I guess." 

Dean didn't know what triggered the change. At first. But when he looked to his left, Cas was shining, his eyes bright blue, his Grace manifesting itself. Dean didn't feel intimidated by the show in the slightest. 

He was sitting next to a nuke bomb, and he felt safe and more at home than the previous night in his own room. He was safe because Cas was safe.

The brightness subsided. 

"My Grace seems to be completely alright," said Cas, satisfaction written over his face. "Let me heal you before you go, Sam."

And was that just Dean's imagination, or was Cas throwing Sam out of the room?

"I'm alright," Sam tried to resist. Which never ended good when it came to Cas's medical knowledge. 

"Your right wrist is cramming up, and you have a few cracked ribs. Together with hundred of cuts that can catch infection. If you call that 'alright', then fine." 

They taught Cas well when it came to irony. 

Sam reluctantly took the few steps forward, Cas extending two fingers to his forehead, a well-rehearsed routine. He didn't leave Dean's side for a second, and Sam had to lower himself down for it to work.

It was hilarious. 

Sam made a beeline for the doors as soon as the business was over, but he hesitated halfway. 

"I hope you know what kind of kiss is strong enough to break curses," he said, amusement clear as day in his voice. He had the balls to throw a smirk behind his shoulder, leaving Dean and Cas alone in the room.

Cas shifted. Maybe to get some reasonable distance between them, personal space has never been his strongest suit. Maybe because he was uncomfortable. But this wasn't the day for distance, not when Dean just got him back. 

A touch that didn't hurt was rare in their world. 

Dean put hand on his thigh, to keep him in the place, to stop him from running away. 

He just got him back, and he was never going to let him go – that was his promise. 

"Cas," Dean said into the silence, softly, maybe too softly for the hunter, the killer that he was. There was a question embroidered in that name, a question for unthinkable. 

"Yes, Dean," Cas breathed out, like he understood what lied underneath, and maybe he always did. 

"Never do that again."

Their lips connected, for the second time this day, and certainly not for the last time. The crown of thorns turned into ash. 

Maybe the curse wasn't entirely Dean's fault this time. It didn't make him any more deserving, it wasn't a significant difference, but maybe it wouldn't have mattered anyway.

Because Dean Winchester knew which kisses were strong enough to break curses. 

The true love's ones.

**Author's Note:**

> I like to think that Cas dreamed about the gardens.
> 
> Have a nice day!


End file.
